


Locum Tenens

by Daxolotl



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Death In Dream, F/F, Feelings Realization, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Light Angst, Moving On, UNO, Unconditional Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 18:07:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20086498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daxolotl/pseuds/Daxolotl
Summary: Kara thinks, sometimes, about the things she'd be willing to lose.





	Locum Tenens

Kara thinks, some nights, about her Aunt.

The thoughts usually strike her around sunset, when the light is closest to that of Krypton. But sometimes, they strike her when she least expects it. During sister nights, or at the DEO. At CatCo, once. The unexpected shock of that stopped her in her tracks like a punch to the gut.

She grieves for her home. Of course she does. Even though she's found, in recent years, that her mother is alive. She grieves for the home that was, and the people she lost. But the loss of Astra is a newer pain - sharper. A pain of something lost, and found, and taken away again.

And she wonders, some days, why it had been so easy to forgive Alex for it.

She had been ready to cast J'onn aside, when she thought he had been responsible for Astra's death. But that, at least, was understandable. He was a new ally at the time, and someone who Kara had already worried about the methods of - of course it would be different forgiving him, compared to Alex.

But her thoughts drift. She questions herself.

As she sits with her friends during a game night, catching popcorn in her mouth when Alex throws it at her and laughing at something Brainy had said, the questions strike at the back of her mind.

Her aunt is dead, and she is happy here. She is happy sitting next to the murderer of her aunt, making jokes with her and accusing her of cheating at Uno. ("How can I possibly be cheating at Uno, Kar? That's ridiculous!")

And as the sun sets behind Alex's face, framing it in orange and red, Kara wonders if she would have forgiven anyone else for it. If someone else had been in her place, that night.

James?

She'd been in love with him, back then. At least, she thought she had been. But she thinks, in her heart of hearts, that that betrayal would have cut her too deeply to bear.

She pictures herself avoiding him at CatCo. Encouraging Winn into the DEO earlier, to disband the Superfriends and distance herself from James further.

If she'd told Cat of a betrayal, would she have shifted him to another department? Would she have fired him?

She was only Cat's assistant back then, but...Miss Grant always seemed to have a soft spot for Kara's continued happiness.

Winn is her closest friend. But she feels like her reaction to his betrayal would have been the same.

Distancing herself from him at work - or leaving CatCo entirely. Splitting ties. Even if they could have mended fences, years later...she wouldn't have been the same. She wouldn't have ever trusted him again. They might, eventually, have reached a point of being friends. But never as close as they had been. His jokes would sour. The humour he has, the way he can always make Kara laugh, would feel like needles in her skin. How could he make jokes, and be himself, after what he did?

She would never have let go of that pain.

And she wonders, then, where the pain in her heart is now?

When she looks at Alex, she doesn't feel it. She just feels warmth.

Does that make her a terrible person? For feeling warm in the presence of her aunt's killer?

Does it make her heartless?

Alex places down her fourth Draw 4 in a row, and Kara makes a noise of absolute displeasure. ("Don't hate the player, hate the game!")

She knows this game is rigged in Alex's favour.

It's all rigged in Alex's favour.

It would've been the same with Mon-El. Kara knows it. Even at the height of her infatuation with him (she isn't sure, with the benefit of hindsight, if she would call it _love_. Love, from all that she has seen, is easy. As effortless as breathing. And caring for Mon-El had never come easily), she doesn't think she could have forgiven him.

She feels, in her heart, that she would have hated him. That because she cared so much about him, the sting and the pain of it all would have cut even deeper than that of J'onn or James or Winn. It would have torn her open, and pulled out her insides, and replaced them with hate and rage and fury at this Daxamite who came to her planet just to hurt her.

She would have become ugly, deep in her soul, at Astra's murder by Mon-El's hand. Ugly and wretched and vengeful.

But not with Alex.

Never with Alex.

Kara finally gets a turn without Alex blocking her, and triumphantly places down her blue seven. She feels very good about it. 

She feels even better about it when Nia groans and starts drawing cards.

...What if their places had been swapped?

Kara freezes. Her leg stops jiggling. Her face freezes in the easygoing smile she had.

Her blood runs cold.

What if, in that fight, things had turned out differently?

What if Kara had arrived, and instead of finding Astra's body with Alex standing over it, she'd found Alex? Alex broken and bleeding, barely clinging to life?

Alex, coughing and wheezing as she apologises to Kara, again and again, for failing to protect her.

As she reassures Kara that everything's going to be okay.

As she whispers, with her final, ragged, broken breaths, that Kara is strong, and beautiful, and that knowing her and being her sister has been the greatest honour of her life.

_What if Astra had killed Alex?_

Kara gasps for air, the very thought cutting through her body like a knife.

Astra would have been wracked with guilt, Kara knows. She was a warrior, and she and Alex had great respect for one another. But more than that, Astra knew that Alex was Kara's sister.

Astra would have known she had just killed Kara's family.

She would probably have surrendered, in penance. To express her guilt to Kara. To try and make amends.

Kara doesn't know if she'd have accepted them. She doesn't know if Astra would have lived to see the DEO prison cells.

Perhaps J'onn would have stayed her hand. Restrained her, even. Told her that with Astra alive and surrendering to them, they'd be able to stop whatever plans Non had. That Alex's sacrifice would be in vain if Kara struck her down.

Perhaps she would have survived.

But Kara wouldn't have visited her.

For the first weeks, Kara would stay in her apartment. Barely moving. Barely eating. She knows, every time there was a knock on her door (Winn, checking in, again. James, trying to offer sympathy. Clark, visiting too late to help.) that her heart would leap into her throat. That, for a moment, she would hope that it was Alex. That somehow, she'd survived. She'd been saved, and was here for a belated sister night with an elaborate explanation and a charming smile.

Then...she'd abandon Kara Danvers. Or maybe she'd abandon Supergirl.

Both of those personas only existed because of Alex, after all.

Without Alex...why would she be human? Why would she be a hero?

She'd still stop Non, out of some sense of duty, and revenge. But after that...Kara Danvers would disappear from CatCo. Or Supergirl would disappear from the world. Or both.

And weeks would turn into months, would turn into years.

James says something in the real world, but Kara doesn't quite hear it. She's trapped, now, in this hellish alternate reality she's imagined herself in.

The aching hole in her chest wouldn't get better. She doesn't know how she knows that, but...she does.

She knows that no matter how long passed, no matter how much people tried to help...there would be a piece of her missing. The most important part of herself would have been ripped out and crushed, choked on blood and bone.

Perhaps, eventually, she'd speak with Astra.

She would be the only family Kara had left, after all.

But Kara wouldn't be able to forgive her. Not in a week, or a month, or a century. No matter how apologetic Astra was...it wouldn't matter.

The pain might numb, over time, and after years, Kara might bear to be in the same room as Astra. Might bear to speak cordially to her, even. But never to be close to her. Never to be soft, or familial. Never to love her again.

"Kara? You okay?"

And Kara doesn't know how she knows this. She doesn't know what makes the two of them different. But she knows they are.

She knows, deep in her bones, that if the situation had been flipped? If Alex's life had been substituted for Astra's? She would have never forgiven Astra for it.

And what does that mean?

What does it mean, that she would forgive one family member the death of another one way, but not the other? What does that say about her bond to Astra? What does that say about her bond to _Alex_?

"Kara!"

Kara snaps out of her reverie. People have been calling her name. Alex is staring at her, concern in her eyes.

"Yeah! Sorry, zoned out for a bit. What happened?"

Nia and Brainy share a confused look for a few moments.

"It is your turn, Kara Danvers. I believe Director Danvers placed another Plus Two on the pile, and thus you are obligated to draw two more colourful cards."

Kara groans, and draws two cards.

Her bond to Alex is deeper than anyone else.

Kara forgave Alex for something she wouldn't have forgiven anyone else for. She forgave Alex for the murder of her aunt.

And she knows that she would hate Astra, for all of her life, if Astra had taken Alex from her.

She knows that her love for her friends, and for Mon-El, and even for Astra, is...conditional. That there are atrocities she would never be able to forgive them for.

That there are things that they could do, and harm that they could cause, that no amount of love would be able to fix in her heart.

And Kara...Kara doesn't know if that line exists, with Alex.

She doesn't know if there is anything Alex could ever do that would break them apart - that would make her love Alex any less than she does.

Because loving Alex is as effortless as breathing.

Alex's foot reaches over, and she pokes the side of Kara's leg with one toe. "Everything alright?"

There's a look of soft concern on her face. And, abruptly, Kara's world clicks into place.

_Oh. Of course._

It feels warm, and comforting. It feels like Rao.

And as she looks down at the skip card Alex has just placed, and at the Uno cards Alex has discreetly stuffed up her sleeves, Kara smiles.

She truly, genuinely smiles, and she doesn't feel the pain of Astra's loss. She just feels love, and warmth.

"Yeah," she says.

Her heart was always rigged in Alex's favour.

"Everything's exactly the way I want it to be."


End file.
